


Quiet Company

by orphan_account



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Pennywise (IT), Angst, First Kisses, Flashbacks, Friends to Lovers, I can't believe I've done this, M/M, Not as sad as it seems, Really!, Slow Burn, Summer Romance, not entirely but they're both stupid teenage boys in love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-11 19:58:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19933660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “I hate him,” he whispers. It comes out a loud and tear-filled breath. His shoulders slump with the weight of it. “I hate him so much.”If Bill were here, Richie thinks he might shake his head and say, quiet yet sure, “No you don’t. You love him. You love him so much that you can’t stand him,” and Richie would go mad or go sad or perhaps both, but he’d believe him.or the one where Richie and Eddie fall in love during the summer of 1993 until things don't go according to their plan.





	1. i.

**Author's Note:**

> hi uh just a little note!! 
> 
> there’s quite a lot of back and forth here and i personally imagine older richie and and eddie as slightly younger versions of james ransone and bill hader
> 
> if you see them as finn and jack, it should work just the same! they’re both in their thirties during the present, so do with that information what u will

When Richie knocks on Eddie’s door, his nose is bleeding. 

It runs down his face, over his lips and pools past his chin and he looks ridiculous, surely, but he knocks all the same. 

He had gotten into his first fight of the summer only an hour before and believe him, he gave as good as he got. He had shoved Dave Fischer down (because he’d had it coming to him for years) and came out with a scrape to the cheek, a busted lip, and a bloody nose. 

If it wasn’t for Dave’s stupid fucking friends getting in the way, Richie is sure that he would have just smashed his smug and ugly face against the asphalt. Yes, he’s sure. He’s never been more sure of anything in his life, he thinks.

Richie spits over the railing of Eddie’s porch and carefully pushes his glasses up far on his nose. The silence behind Eddie’s front door goes on for so long that Richie starts to think that maybe nobody’s gonna answer. The sun’s setting now, and for a moment Richie dreads the walk home before he hears the click of two locks. 

When Eddie opens the door, Richie is pinching his nose shut and covering the blood that drips past his chin. Eddie looks tired, and he squeezes one eye shut when the porch light blinds him. He sighs loudly and peeks frequent looks behind himself, almost as if his mom would be there any second to see if he was talking to that ‘No Good Richie Tozier’. 

“Richie? Jeez, don’t you have somewhere to be?” Eddie whispers.

Richie lowers his hands and flashes him a bloody smile. 

Eddie’s eyes widen, and for a second Richie thinks that his eyebrows may raise straight off his face. “Oh—are you serious? Really Richie? The second fucking day of summer and you—“ he puffs a breath out and pinches the bridge of his own nose in frustration. He takes another quick look towards his mom’s room and then closes the door behind himself as he steps out onto the porch. Richie can’t help but snicker.

“I can’t believe you’re doing this to me. Seriously, Richie, if my mom even begins to think you were ever here, she’ll kill me.”

Richie doesn’t doubt that Eddie is more than likely right. Last summer, after Mike had accidentally bent Eddie’s arm the wrong way, Ms. Kaspbrak had made it very clear that she didn’t want any of them near her ‘baby Eddie’ again. If Richie still sneaks into her sons room from time to time, and if he crawls out of his bed in the morning before the sun even fully rises, she doesn’t need to know about it.

Richie scoffs and says “Oh, come on, Eds. Don’t be that way! Now, will Doctor K. be seeing me now or what?” 

Eddie simply gives him a nasty look, but there’s a sweet smile somewhere behind it. He swallows hard, nervous, but nods nonetheless.

He steadies a hand on the doorknob and squeaks out, “Just try to be quiet, ok? My mom’s trying to fall asleep, I think.” Richie snorts quietly, pushing up his glasses the best he can without getting blood everywhere. “Yeah. I figured she’d probably need as much sleep as she can get after what I just put her through.” Eddie gives him a glare over his shoulder and Richie snickers again. ”Oh! Do you think you can clean the scratches on my back too? Or is that too much to ask?”

Richie sits on the edge of Eddie’s bathtub and wipes at the partially dried blood on his chin. He looks down at his own shoes and notices that they re-tiled the floors. The wallpaper’s the same, though, and the familiarity of it makes Richie’s chest feel a bit warmer.

Eddie comes back, and he has cotton pads and gauze and a bottle of--oh shit.

Richie jerks backwards roughly when he sets the peroxide beside him. “Nope. Nuh-uh,” he says quickly, crossing his arms defiantly. “I know what that shit does, Eds. It fucking _burns_ your skin off.” Eddie pulls a face, one that says ‘ _seriously?_ ’, and he drenches a piece of cotton with it anyways. 

Richie nearly slaps his hand away, but Eddie is quicker is and grips onto his jaw firmly. His hand smooshes Richie’s cheeks together, and it makes his face go hot, reminding him of when he used to pinch at Eddie’s soft cheeks and chant “Cute, cute cute!” when they were younger. 

“Shit, oh shit, oh shit,” Richie hisses and Eddie pushes back his curls, rubs over his scraped cheek with the dripping cotton pad. He jerks again, and Eddie chuckles lightheartedly, perhaps tiredly, says “Don’t be a baby, Rich,” and Richie smiles at that. If he’s still got blood all in his teeth, Eddie doesn’t say so. He smiles with him. 

“So,” Eddie dabs more peroxide on his cuts. “Who was it?” Richie doesn’t wince this time. 

“Fucking David Fischer.” 

Eddie pulls a face, but nods knowingly. He shudders and Richie gives him a funny look. “Dave’s disgusting. He’s like a walking sickness.”

Dave Fischer was, in fact, disgusting in more ways than one. He was a confidence man, a year older than Richie and his friends, and he would sneer at Richie when they would lock eyes. He’d yelled at Eddie, had cursed at Mike and had whistled at Bev all in the same week. To say he had it coming would be an understatement. 

Richie wipes at his nose, feels at the cotton stuffed inside and thinks about what he must look like. His fingers trail down and ghost over the slash in his bottom lip, and Eddie smacks his hand out of the way. 

“Don’t do that. You might infect it,” Eddie says, gathering the bottle of peroxide and reddened strips of wool. “Stay here. If my mom even suspects I used any of this stuff, I’ll be stuck in the emergency room for the rest of the fucking summer.” 

When Eddie sneaks quietly out of the bathroom, and when Richie is sure he’s out of sight, he immediately creeps down the hallway and heads straight for his room.

It’s changed a lot since last summer, Richie notices, and he isn’t sure if he likes it. All of his posters are gone, replaced by picture frames filled with family members he probably doesn’t know the names of. His inhaler sits idly beside his bed. Richie wonders when he used it last, but decides against dwelling on the thought for too long. He picks up the camera that sits on his desk, flopping back into Eddie’s spinning stool and looking through the lens experimentally. 

He’s met with darkness, and for a moment he’s scared he broke it and his heart drops into the pit of his stomach. Richie jumps when he hears Eddie’s pinched voice cut through the silence of his room. “The fucking cap is on, genius.” Richie sets it back down and busies himself with spinning around in circles on Eddie’s desk chair. For a moment, Eddie’s figure blurs into smooth streaks of color. 

“What ever happened to the pictures you took last summer?” Richie asks. 

He thinks Eddie shrugs, and the muddiness of his figure fades as he comes closer. “I was gonna get em’ developed, but mom didn’t think I had enough for it to be worth the money.” Richie makes a face, one of thought and he stops himself with his feet, grabs the camera again and holds it back up to his now swelling eye.

He imitates the sounds of raging paparazzi “Oh beautiful! So beautiful! Over here, Mr. Kaspbrak, over here!” he cries out. “What do you say, Eds?” Richie suggests. “Let’s give her something to develop.”

Eddie snatches the camera from his hands, laughing while he does it. “Only if you take the cap off first,” he says, and Richie laughs too. It hurts his nose and it stretches the split in his lip, but he smiles with it. He gets up, letting Eddie take his seat as he fumbles with the lens cap. Richie squats behind the chair, wrapping his arms tightly around Eddie’s shoulders, and Eddie holds up the camera as best as he can. 

“Ok, smile!” He says.

And Richie does.

***  


The town of Haddonfield reminds Richie of Derry in a way. He isn’t quite sure if that’s a good thing or not, but it’s a very cozy town nevertheless. 

When he’d first made it to New Jersey two nights before, sleep didn’t come easy to him. He’d gone out to one of the town’s many bars, drank a little too much and woke up in his motel bathtub. He went out to the beach and paced the boardwalk, punched a guy in the face and kissed two others and now, he’s sitting in some street corner coffee shop waiting on a (late) Bill Denbrough. 

Richie thinks that the short woman working the floor is starting to pity him. She comes over to his table for the third time since he arrived, and her lips quirk up. “More coffee?”

He purses his lips, but smiles. “Sounds good.” 

He thinks he zoned out because he misses when Bill sits down in front of him. Or perhaps it’s just that he doesn’t recognize him. He’s grown a foot, surely, and his hair is more brown than ever. He has a different kind of gleam behind his eyes, but his smile is still completely as he remembers; warm and soft. This time, however, there’s pity behind it, and Richie doesn’t like how it makes him feel. 

Bill orders some weird kind of coffee that Richie’s never heard of and they exchange awkward hugs filled with friendly shoulder pats before Bill asks, “So, h-how have you been? It’s been a wuh-wuh-while, but I’m really glad you came. You still acting?” His stutter has become less noticeable over the years, it seems.

Richie smiles, then frowns blandly. He chuckles and shrugs. “Kind of hard to act when you don’t have a manager, but yeah. I’m still out in California, y’know.” 

Bill laughs and takes a sip of his drink. Richie isn’t quite sure why he laughs, he isn’t quite sure why things are so awkward between them all of a sudden. Bill tries to lighten the mood by raving about some movie he loves, and it actually sort of works. Richie doesn’t necessarily care, but he watches, half-amused, as Bill talks with his hands like he used to back in Derry. He tells stories of Mike and Bev, and Richie smiles because it seems like not much has changed since they all went their separate ways.. At one point, Richie laughs so hard that his ribs hurt, because it only makes sense that Stan and Ben would slap-box in a parking lot at two in the morning. 

Their laughter dies down after a while, and it feels as though Richie is a kid again. He hasn’t felt this way in a while, and it makes him feel so good inside. He sips at his coffee, and Bill clears his throat. 

“I uh--” He stops himself, clearing his throat again, louder this time like there’s something thick and heavy stuck in there, and Richie just looks at him. The look on Bill’s face makes him feel funny inside.

He takes a breath, then says “I guh-gave Eddie your phone number.” It comes out in a barely intelligible rush, but Richie’s heart sinks nonetheless.

“You? You did fucking _what?_ ” 

“Listen, R-Richie. Before you get all bent out of shape; he practically buh-begged me to give it to him yesterday. He said he needed to--”

“I don’t give a shit what Eddie fucking said!” Richie gets a dirty look from two elderly women sitting a booth down from him. He scrubs at his eyes until he sees those colorful spots and lets out a breath. He groans into his own hands. 

Bill just tilts his big head and gives Richie this look. He shakes his head, taking another sip of his drink before sighing loudly. “You know, he thinks you’re still bitter about what huh-happened back in Derry.”

It’s Richie’s turn to give Bill a look, and he chuckles angrily into his cup. “Uh, yeah. I’m _still_ fucking bitter about it. I’ll always be fucking bitter about it, Bill.” 

“Come on, Rich. Just,” he sighs again, kneading at his temples with his palms. “See if he has s-something he w-wants to say. Who knows! Maybe he even wants to a-a-apologize.”

Richie should be mad. No, Richie should be absolutely fucking _livid_. Instead, he twists his own fingers nervously. “I don’t even know what to say to him,” Richie says, and he means it. 

His heart aches with it. Part of him had counted on never seeing Eddie ever again, had counted on it for years because nothing could be more painful than seeing his face again. Another part of him wants to kiss him, he thinks. Richie goes around and around so much in his mind that he isn’t quite sure what he thinks anymore, what he _really_ thinks. All that Richie ever does is wait for the moment that Eddie no longer possesses him, but it never seems to come.

When they leave the coffee shop and step out onto the chilly streets, Richie takes a deep breath and feels the cold air flood his lungs. It feels nice.

“You’re crying,” Bill says stupidly. Richie laughs, an ugly sound, his heart breaking in his chest. 

That night, after the incident in the coffee shop, Richie thinks about Eddie, really thinks about him for the first time in a long time. He writes down what he wants to say to Eddie when he sees him again. _If_ he sees him again. He starts with “How’s things?”, erases it and instead puts “How’s life?” Sleep delirious and sad, he writes down, “I hate you,” three times in a row, stretching down long and low across the page. But Richie doesn’t hate him, never has and never will. Not because he doesn’t want to, but simply because his heart won’t allow it. He erases them too.

As he drifts off, he wonders if Eddie ever misses him. He wonders why he misses Eddie so much.


	2. ii.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the past, Richie and Eddie start off their summer the right way, and Richie is suddenly hit with unknown and obviously unconfronted feelings.
> 
> In the present, Eddie puts an offer on the table. 
> 
> or
> 
> They're both stupid and have no clue how to deal with their feelings the right way!

The first thing Richie sees when he pries his own eye open is Eddie’s shaking hand. Eddie makes a noise of disgust, then shivers and says “Rich, are you sure you wanna do this?” 

“Yeah,” Richie says before he can even think, “Just stick it in. It can’t be that hard.” Apparently, it _can_ be that hard. Before Richie can even completely finish his sentence, Eddie is gagging. He reaches for his garbage can, puts a hand over his mouth and clenches his eyes shut, groaning frustratedly. 

“I really don’t think I can do this,” he says, and he sets Richie’s contact back down in its case. Richie sighs and rubs both of his eyes. “Come on, Eds. My eyes don’t have _that _many germs in them!”__

__They both share a look, both pleading for two different things but pleading nonetheless. Eddie rubs at his eyes too and sighs with defeat. Richie lets out a too-loud, “That’s my boy!” and wrenches his eye open again._ _

__Eddie bites one of his knuckles, then grimaces as his finger approaches Richie’s eye for a fourth try. He watches Eddie through a strained eye and decides that he looks funny when he’s focusing really hard. He has his tongue wedged between his teeth and he’s pouting like he has no clue what to do next. If Richie’s being honest, he doesn’t know what to do next either. When Eddie’s finger touches his eye, he flinches backward._ _

__“Jesus fuck, Eddie! Stop using your nails!” Richie yells and he wipes at the tear that slips out of his eye and down his cheek._ _

__“I’m sorry! Just hang on.”_ _

__After their eighth try, the contact lens slips smoothly onto his pupil and he blinks away the foreign feeling. He can hear Eddie’s triumphant cheering from beside him, and he smiles despite the pain in his eye. The second one slips on just as smoothly._ _

__“Oh wow! You look,” Eddie stops, tilting his head and thinking. “You look different?”_ _

__Richie frowns. “So you’re saying it looks bad?”_ _

__“No! No, not at all. You look different! You look great, Rich.”_ _

__And when he looks at Eddie, and when Eddie looks right back at him with that soft smile, Richie feels it, too._ _

__“It feels so weird not having those things on my eyes.” As if to prove his point, he tries to push up his glasses, but his finger just makes contact with his nose. The sun shines through Eddie’s drapes, covering him in golden strips of light. It creates some kind of orangeness in his brown eyes. Eddie clears his throat while he slips the contact solution under his bed with the rest of his secret medical supplies._ _

__“Bev said that her and everyone else were planning on going swimming today,” Eddie says. “Would you wanna go?”_ _

__Richie gives Eddie a look, sitting back against his bed. “I know you don’t plan on going, Mr. ‘My Mom Will Kill Me If She Finds Out’.”_ _

__“Um, I actually do plan on going, dipshit. My moms gonna do all of her shopping today. You know she stocks up like the fucking world is gonna’ end tomorrow or something.”_ _

__Richie just laughs and rolls his eyes. “It’s so hot outside that we might melt before we even get there. God, the pool sounds _perfect._ ”_ _

__“Perfect,” Eddie confirms with a laugh of his own._ _

__When they get to the Derry Public Pool, Mike and Ben are already there, their bikes stationed carefully outside of the fence. Bill pulls up soon after, and everyone makes jokes when Stan and Bev show up at the same time._ _

__Richie glances at Eddie once they're inside the fences and easily notices his fidgeting. The public pool is always booming around the first few weeks of summer, and more kids obviously means more germs. Eddie grimaces when he spots two teenagers sticking their tongues down each other's throats, floating idly by themselves in a corner of the pool._ _

__Richie nudges his arm with his elbow, his voice soft when he says, “Eds? You gonna’ be okay?”_ _

__Eddie rolls his eyes at the name. “Yeah,” he lets out a shuddering breath. “I just - imagine how many peoples’ feet have been on the floor of that thing.” He’s staring through the water, down to the bottom of the pool._ _

__Richie pats him on the back, slinging an arm around his shoulders. “Oh, no worries,” he says, and he leans close to whisper, “Besides, I can always carry you around.” Eddie scoffs, mock disgust behind his voice, and he shrugs off Richie’s arm._ _

__“Fuck you, Richie,” he says, but he’s smiling dumbly and Richie laughs, high and loud._ _

__The water is warm, at least they have that much._ _

__Mike carries Beverely on his shoulders and swims at Ben, who has a very confused and obviously worried Stan gripping onto his head to steady himself and Eddie is laughing harder than Richie has seen him laugh in a long time._ _

__They sit with Bill in between them and watch with grins on their faces as Bev gives Stan a rough shove to the chest, sending him flying off Ben’s shoulders and splashing into the water. The lifeguard blows her whistle, and Richie rolls his eyes as the kids are forced to stop their play fighting._ _

__“She-she-she’s very strict a-a-about these kinds of things,” Bill tells them, then swims away to fish Stan out of the water._ _

__They all swim out into the deeper end, and Richie tries not to laugh when Eddie clutches onto the pool’s edge for dear life. They all watch as Mike jumps off the high dive, and they laugh lightheartedly when Bill climbs up to the top then chickens out and climbs back down to steady ground. When Richie turns around, Eddie is still clinging to the far wall of the pool._ _

__He swims over to him, wipes his eyes and says “Dude, what’s wrong? You haven’t even gotten your hair wet.” Eddie shrugs then frowns._ _

__“I don’t know,” he sighs. “I just don’t really like the pool that much. There’s so many kids and they all probably piss in here and don’t even get me started on the spit and the mucus and the-”_ _

__“Ok, ok. Just please try to go under with me? Just once.”_ _

__Before Eddie can refuse, Richie clings onto his shoulders. “Pleaseee,” he drags out, “Your brain is probably _boiling_ in your head. I’m just being a good friend and looking out for you, Eds.”_ _

__Eddie sighs before trying to shrug Richie off. “Fine, fine! I’ll go under once, but only once. And I’m not opening my eyes.” Richie smiles extra hard when Eddie adds “Also, don’t call me that!”_ _

__He finally lets go of the wall, and they swim out towards the center of the deep end. Richie and Eddie both draw in a deep breath at the same time before descending beneath the water. It fills Richie’s ears and builds a pressure inside his head, but he cracks open his eyes. When the blurriness fades, Richie sees him._ _

__Eddie’s in front of him, sun beaming down in thick rays and falling on his skin even beneath the water’s surface. He’s got his cheeks puffed out, holding in that long breath, and his eyes are clenched shut. Little bubbles come out his nose as the air he’s holding in escapes. His hair’s floating above him, waving in all different directions and Richie thinks it looks like spilled ink._ _

__For a moment, he lets himself think that Eddie looks beautiful._ _

__Then, his heart wrenches and he stops. He clenches his eyes shut and shakes his head under the water, trying to rid himself of the thought. Because things just don’t work that way. Because Eddie is a boy, and Richie is too and that was just the way things were meant to be._ _

__When he surfaces and gulps at the air, he watches as water drips off of Eddie’s messy hair and trails down over his lips. The irrational part of himself wants to wipe it away; the rational part stops him._ _

__Suddenly, it feels like he’s underwater all over again._ _

__***_ _

__The complimentary breakfast that Richie’s hotel offers has been sitting out for way too long. The eggs look oddly crumbly and the sausage is formed into a perfect, gray circle and Richie wrinkles his nose as he just sips his apple juice. It’s complimentary for a reason - he knows that - and it’s free as well. So, he pulls through and forks some eggs into his mouth._ _

__They’re dry, and they fall apart inside his mouth in shriveled crumbles, but at least they’re warm._ _

__He winces and guzzles down the rest of his apple juice, washing down the texture and taste of old egg. His phone buzzes against the table, and he jumps before settling back into his chair. He huffs out a breath, then answers._ _

__“Yeah?”_ _

__“Uh, hello?”_ _

__Richie’s heart aches a little bit before sinking into his stomach. The voice, although deeper and worn by time, is unmistakably Eddie’s. His eyes widen, and he runs a hand over his nose and mouth._ _

__“Who - uh - who’s this?” Richie asks dumbly._ _

__He hears Eddie clear his throat, but his voice still cracks when he says “It’s Eddie.” His heart pounds, and he doesn’t speak for a few seconds. His silence causes Eddie to stutter before he says, “Uh, Kaspbrak,” and Richie wants to scream._ _

__“Oh, hey,” Richie says, sounding anything but calm. He bites at a piece of dry skin on his lip and says “It’s been a while.”_ _

__It’s been longer than a while. They both know it. Richie acts like it’s a surprise to hear Eddie’s voice come through his speaker, but he’d been waiting for this call his whole life; and now, it’s here and frankly, he isn’t sure if he’s ready._ _

__Eddie hums softly. “It has. I was wondering if maybe you’d wanna, um, get a drink, y’know. Catch up a little?”_ _

__God, if this doesn’t end soon, Richie is sure he’s gonna scream or cry or both. “I’m-I’m living in California now.”_ _

__“Oh,” Eddie says, and his voice is laced with confusion. “Well, Bill said that you were coming to Haddonfield to visit for a little bit. I just thought-”_ _

___Bill._ __

__

__

__Richie balls up his free fist, holding a hand over the receiver before biting into his knuckles to silence his oncoming yell of anger. _“Fucking Bill!”_ He would scream. He puts the phone back up to his ear. Eddie is still rambling nervously. If it was a different time and a different place, and if Richie felt like he could actually breathe, he might have smiled at the tone of Eddie’s voice. But it’s not a different time or place, and Richie _can’t_ breathe. It’s here and it’s now and Richie has to face this._ _

__“It’s just that I really-”_ _

__“Yes,” he bites out quickly, unintentionally bitter. “I’m in Haddonfield.”_ _

__“That’s, uh, great? So, would you still wanna’ do this, maybe?” Eddie asks, sounding just as unsure as Richie feels. His hand shakes against the table, his knuckles going white from how hard he’s clenching his fist. He gulps loudly, and he’s sure Eddie can hear it._ _

__“Eddie,” he pauses, his voice cracking on the name. “I don’t know if this is a good idea.”_ _

__He hears Eddie breathe deeply, and the noise is so familiar, after all these years, that it makes his stomach hurt. He rubs at his eyes when Eddie says, “You’re probably right.”_ _

__They stay silent for a minute, and Richie rubs at his eyes again. His head’s starting to hurt with how much he’s holding his breath, waiting for Eddie to just say_ something_ else. He should hang up, he thinks. He picks at the dry skin on his bottom lip again, fiddles with his hands and fuck he hopes he doesn’t regret this.

Fuck it. “Fine, y’know what? Let’s just do it.” It comes out as a rush, and his heart beats so quickly that he grips the table roughly with his free hand.

Eddie makes a surprised noise through the phone. “Huh? Seriously?” Richie thinks he sounds excited. 

“Well, yeah. I mean, I don’t really come to Haddonfield often, so why not?” He tries to laugh to lighten the mood, but the only thing that comes out is a strangled noise.

“So, uh, I’ll pick you up then, okay? Five o’clock on Wednesday sound ok?”

Richie bites the inside of his cheek. His food’s cold. 

“Perfect,” Richie says

“Perfect,” Eddie beams. Then the line goes dead, and he feels like he can finally breathe again.

When Richie gets back to his room, he closes the door hard and cries his eyes out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bro they're so stupid im genuinely the writer and im like dude just say you love him!! this shit is getting ridiculous lemme tell you. 
> 
> in other news, this whole fic was based off the song 'terrible love' by the national ugh truly a reddie anthem.
> 
> oh also I did change the name of this from Pulling Leaves Off Trees to Quiet Company because i'm indecisive and can't stop myself


	3. iii.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the past, Richie begins to realize that maybe things between him and Eddie aren't as normal as he thinks they are. Maybe Eddie is picking up on that, too.
> 
> In the present, Richie and Eddie deal with their problems as they come. Or maybe they don’t.
> 
> or
> 
> two very hurting boys

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uh slight vomit warning!! sorry for that!!

“Richie,” Eddie shakes him, light at first then harder when he refuses to wake. “Rich, wake up.” He’s whispering, which means that Sonia isn’t awake yet, and if Sonia isn’t awake then that means the sun isn’t out. When Eddie shakes him again, Richie rolls over to confirm his suspicion. 

The strips of sky that he can see through Eddie’s window are mixes of pink and blue, yet his room is filled with darkness. 

He yawns, wipes his eyes and says, “Jeez, Eddie. What time is it?”

“It’s six, I think,” he whispers, and Richie lets his head hit the pillow hard. Eddie’s bed is too small to fit both of them, almost too small to fit Eddie himself, but they had piled into it without a second thought and now Richie is sweating with the summer heat. 

“I usually leave at seven-thirty, though. What’s the rush, Eds?”

Even in the dark, Eddie is so close that Richie can see him biting at his nails nervously. He’s sitting with his back against the wall, knees digging into Richie’s side and Richie sits up too, perhaps a bit too fast. 

“I’m just,” he sighs, runs his hands over his face and eyes, “I’m scared my mom’s gonna get suspicious.”

Richie rolls his eyes and crosses his arms. “She won’t! She doesn’t have anything to be suspicious about.”

Eddie’s hands start fidgeting in his lap, and Richie wants to reach over and grab them. The thought leaves his head as quickly as it came. “You know you aren’t supposed to be here, dude. If she finds out we’re still friends, _or god forbid_ she finds out you were in my fucking room, or-or if she finds out _anything_ , she’ll--”

“She’ll kill you. Yeah, I know.” Richie tries not to sound bitter, but fails. 

Eddie sighs into his hands, squishes up his own cheeks like he’s thinking about what to say next. Richie doesn’t know what to say to that, either. He can make out Eddie’s eyes in the dark, can see the glossiness of them and he clenches his own shut. 

“Look, Eds. Don’t get upset, okay? I’ll just go.” He gets up off the bed, taking the blankets with his legs and Eddie goes with him. He slips on his shoes, then his jacket.

Eddie unlocks the window for him, pries it open as quietly as he can and cringes when it lets out a faint squeaking noise. It’s windy in Derry, and the gusts blow Eddie’s curtains backwards lightly. 

“I’m sorry, Richie,” he says sadly, but Richie smiles at him, one long leg already dangling out the window. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Richie says. His hair’s getting blown by the wind, curls falling into his face and he swears his heart stops beating when a hand brushes it out of his eyes. Maybe it’s beating so fast that he can’t feel it. Eddie looks at him as if what he did was a completely normal thing to do, and perhaps it is, but Richie feels his cheeks heat up all the same. 

Richie is almost completely out the window when he says, “I’ll see you today, right? At the fair?”

Eddie looks stunned, like Richie had just asked the most obvious question he’d ever heard, then he smiles. He laughs in the form of a breath through his nose, quiet and barely there, and Richie smiles too. “Uh yeah? I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

When his feet hit the ground below Eddie’s bedroom window, the grass squishes wetly beneath him. Muddy water fills his yard, and puddles of fresh rain cover the streets. He looks down into one of them, sees his own face and the reflection of the still pink and blue sky above him. 

While he walks up the road to his house, one foot in front of the other, he thinks of the hand that pushed his windy hair out of his eyes. _Eddie’s hand_. His heart flutters. He pretends he doesn’t feel it, and keeps on walking.

\--

The Annual Derry Summer Fair is a well loved event among the town goers. It’s a time to eat, a time to connect to those you love and care about; but most importantly, it’s a time for workers to scam kids like Richie out of their money.

The carnie of the ring toss stand is smirking, a little older than Richie but more smug than he has a right to be. He watches as Richie chucks one of his rings at a bottle, chuckles under his breath when it hits off one of them with a _'ping'_ and wedges itself between the bottles and the table. Eddie watches too. 

Richie tosses another ring, this time with more vigor. It spins around the rim of a bottle before tumbling to the floor, and Eddie jumps when Richie yells, “Stupid fucking ring toss bullshit! Fuck!” He slams his fists onto the counter, then moves to push his glasses far up his nose only to make contact with nothing. 

Eddie seems just as angry as Richie when he says, “This shit is probably rigged anyways,” and they both give the carnie the stink eye as they walk the opposite way. 

When they find the others, Mike is face first into a garbage can outside one of the rides with Ben rubbing his back. 

“What the fuck happened to him?” Richie asks, and before Ben can answer for him, Mike lets out a muffled, “Too fast. They’re maniacs!” He wretches into the can not a minute later, and Richie and Eddie shift their attention to the Tilt-a-Whirl car spinning faster than any other. 

Bev, Bill and Stan are all squished into it, and they chuckle when they see Beverley grip the wheel tightly and start twirling them with all her might, almost angrily. They almost double over laughing when they see Stan and Bill holding onto each other with their eyes clenched shut.

Soon enough, they decide to place a bet on who can go faster. It’s childish and it’s such a bad idea, but they’re still kids, and Richie loves every minute of it. 

It’s Bev and Bill versus Eddie and Richie, and things go bad pretty quickly. Richie knows that Eddie has a competitive side at times, but he had no clue that he was _that_ competitive. He spins the wheel so hard at one point that it sends Richie flying against the wall of their car, and they’re laughing so hard that it hurts Richie’s ribs. Bill and Bev fought over who got to turn the wheel and lost because of it, and Eddie screams in victory. 

The moment they step off the ride, their legs nearly give out and Richie has to lean against Eddie to stop himself from tipping over. Eddie laughs, leans into him too and the act is so tender that it makes Richie’s head hurt.

For a moment, he lets his heart melt. 

While waiting in the line for the carousel, Richie says out of the blue, “Y’know, isn’t it crazy that people have whole countries named after them?”

“Wh-what are you tuh-tuh-talking about, Richie?”

The line doesn’t move. Richie leans against the bars of the fencing. “Well, I mean, get a load of this: There’s 'Chad' for the Chad’s. There’s 'Jordan' for the Jordan’s. Why the fuck don’t they have one named ‘Richie’ dedicated to the Richie’s out there.”

Richie pretends to be offended when Stan says, “They do. It’s called the Virgin Islands.” Bev laughs so hard that she nearly screams, and Eddie and Ben laugh along with her. Bill and Mike just shake their heads like disappointed parents. 

Later, when the sun is setting and when the air gets humid with drying rain, Richie and Eddie make the walk back from the fair. They’re stumbling and laughing harder than they’ve laughed all summer and Richie feels like he could get drunk off Eddie’s laugh. He slings an arm around Eddie’s shoulders. 

It’s still hot outside, even as the sky turns orange and it makes Richie feel sticky.

“Who does your mom think you’re out with?” Richie asks, and Eddie kicks at a rock on the road. He shrugs.

“I told her my cousins were in town.”

“Are they?”

“Fuck no,” Eddie laughs, then he grins from ear to ear. “They don’t even live in Maine anymore.”

They make it to the fork in the road, the one separating their houses and the wind is starting to pick up. It blows Richie’s hair like it had just that morning, and part of him wishes that Eddie would brush it out of his face again. 

He doesn’t.

Their silence is comfortable, filled with the low hum of air conditioners struggling against the summer heat and the sound of Eddie’s shoe scuffing when he kicks at the rocks again. They stand there for a few minutes, neither of them saying goodbye before Richie says, “Can I stay over?” Before Eddie can even reply, he rambles on. “I mean, only if you wouldn’t mind. I just thought, y’know?”

Eddie furrows his eyebrows low, and smiles deeply. “You know you can, Rich.”

That night, Richie crawls into Eddie’s bed. Eddie crawls in right after him. They layer on the blankets and the quilt that Eddie loves and they don’t make things weird. They fall asleep wedged up against each other, because that’s what best friends do, right?

Richie tries not to show any emotion when Eddie wakes him up and hurries him out the window the moment the morning light reveals them.

***

Eddie’s car pulls up outside of Richie’s hotel at five o’seven, fashionably late but not late enough to be considered rude and it’s so unbelievably Eddie that Richie kind of feels sick. He breathes in deeply, pushes up his glasses and walks out the lobby doors. 

When he opens the door, he thinks his heart stops. Eddie is in the midst of ripping a water bottle from the cupholder of his front seat, and he slings it into the back and gives Richie an awkward smile. 

Richie smiles back, to be nice of course, then says “Uh, hey man.” 

“Hey.”

Is Eddie supposed to hug him? Is _he_ supposed to hug Eddie? Are they on a handshake basis or should they even touch at all? What is he supposed to even say to him? He had this shit all planned out and now it’s ruined because Eddie is looking at him and he’s so beautiful even after all these years and he’s saying something-- _oh shit he’s saying something._

“Hmm?”

Eddie laughs, sweet and syrupy just like Richie remembers and he says, “I said you ready to head out?”

Richie tries to laugh with him. It doesn’t really work as well as he hoped. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

The drive is silent, awkwardly so, and Eddie decides to start a conversation when they cross the bridge into New York City. 

“Um, your--your glasses,” Eddie says and Richie looks out the window, looks at the expanse of buildings coming into view. 

“Yeah, what about em?” 

“I don’t know, man. Just not used to seeing them, I guess. What happened to the contacts phase?”

Richie sighs, and he looks at Eddie this time. He shrugs. “Never really learned how to put them in on my own, so I guess I just stopped wearing them.” He catches Eddie’s nod, and god he wishes things could have gone differently. They drive in silence through the Newark tunnel, and Richie’s heart aches the whole way through. He wonders if Eddie’s might be doing the same.

Eddie takes him to his favorite bar in Queens. It’s small, secluded and the workers seem to know him by name when he walks through the door. He buys Richie a beer, thick, foamy and dark in color and Richie tries not to flinch when Eddie gives him a pat on the back. 

The ceiling light above their booth casts shadows on Eddie’s face as he sips at his water. “So, uh, how’s California? Is it anything like the movies make it out to be?”

Richie takes a long, _long_ swig of his drink, only tells him what he has to and he clutches his hands together in his lap to stop them from shaking. 

He tells Eddie about his job as an actor, about how the girls there are good and about how the guys are even better. He decides to leave out the part where none of them even come close to Eddie and instead talks about the weather. The beer soon does its job, and Richie’s mind becomes a bit more slippery and he can finally appreciate the way that Eddie laughs when he tells him about some of his past managers. 

Richie begins to think that Eddie’s mind is a bit slippery too, because the conversation is starting to become more natural. He had forgotten how easy it was to talk to Eddie, how easily words came to him when he was around. 

Eddie laughs at all of his jokes, laughs like he really means it and that has Richie smiling. 

Richie orders them a round of shots, and to his surprise Eddie doesn’t refuse one. Richie holds up the shot glass, lets his eyes slip closed for a moment. He hums, pleased, then says, “To reunions.” Eddie can’t hold back his laughter, but clinks his glass against Richie’s anyways. 

“Reunions,” he smiles. 

“So enough about me. What does Eddie Kaspbrak do for a living?” Richie asks and Eddie groans into his hands. His cheeks are red, either from the shot or from embarrassment or perhaps both. 

“I,” he hiccups, laughs. “Shit. I drive an uber.” 

“You’re lying through your fucking teeth,” Richie chuckles, sipping at his beer. When Eddie doesn’t speak, he nearly chokes on his drink. “Holy shit, you’re being serious.”

Eddie tells him about the time a woman nearly gave birth in the back of his car, about the time another woman jerked off her husband behind his seat.

“So, this guy came in my car.”

“Ok, then what?”

“That’s the story, Rich.”

“A guy came in your car, then what? That’s an incomplete story, dude. A guy came in your car, then what happened once he was in?”

Richie’s suddenly laughing so hard that tears form in his eyes and slip down his cheeks. Eddie chuckles too, laughs harder when Richie says through tears, “You meant ejaculation.”

Soon, Richie is thoroughly _not_ sober. Richie takes a shot without his hands, wraps his lips around the glass and jerks his head back. He chokes on it and he laughs until he’s in tears again and god, he feels amazing. Deep down, he knows he’s still a kid in love, knows there’s nothing he can do to stop it. 

They stumble out onto the streets, and Richie slings an arm around Eddie’s shoulders. They don’t even know what time it is, but it’s dark out. It’s winter in Queens, has been for a while and it’s evident in the way that fog pours out of Eddie’s mouth every time he breathes and speaks and Richie wants to kiss him, wants it so bad that his head hurts. 

Richie nearly falls over as he drags him in between two buildings, pushes his own back against the wall and brings Eddie in close. His head feels so heavy and his chest feels warm with Eddie right against him and he wants to kiss him, has wanted to for so long now that he can’t help but press the side of his lips against Eddie’s cheek. He hears Eddie’s breath, feels him lean into it for a second before he pulls away quick. 

He grabs at Richie’s face, rests his head on his chest right beneath his chin. His nose is red, and his sigh creates mist in between them and Richie doesn’t know what to think when Eddie whispers, “We can’t do this.”

Richie lets his head hit the wall behind him and he licks at his lips. “Why not?”

Eddie’s still smothering his face into Richie’s shirt. He laughs nervously. “You’re — you’re drunk, Rich.”

Richie laughs too, high and sweet and ok maybe he’s a little tipsy. Maybe he’s more than tipsy. But so is Eddie, right?

“I’m not,” he smiles, and Eddie draws back.

“You are.” Eddie sounds sad.

“I’m not,” he laughs again and deep down he knows that something else is bothering Eddie. Knows in the way he’s sighing, knows in the tone of his voice. Even through the fogginess, he can tell that something isn’t right. 

“Richie,” Eddie whispers, lower than it needs to be and Richie’s heart pounds because something is definitely wrong. His hands leave Richie’s face but Richie grabs them, looking at him, eyes pleading for him to say what the fuck is wrong.

“I just—“ He stops himself.

“Spit it the fuck out.”

“I’m engaged,” Eddie blurts out, and Richie feels his nose burn. They both breathe, foggy air filling the space between them and suddenly Richie’s eyes aren’t watering because of the cold. Eddie steps back, leans against the wall opposite of Richie and they both look at the floor. Richie feels oddly sober, now, but his head remains fuzzy in a way. 

When Richie doesn’t say anything, Eddie says,“I’m getting married in the spring, Rich.”

“Okay,” Richie bites out and it’s the only thing he can say. He grits his teeth and pretends his heart isn’t breaking.

Richie should have just gotten a fucking taxi back to Haddonfield, but Eddie refuses the moment he says it. 

“Eddie, please just stop,” he pleads. “You can’t drive, you drank. Please just go home.”

“I had a shot, Rich. I can drive and I’m not letting you take a taxi to who fucking know’s where. I’m taking you to Bill’s.” That part of Eddie certainly hasn’t changed. He’s still persistent, stubborn in a way. Richie grits his teeth angrily.

“I’m not fucking going to Bill’s, okay?”

Eddie gives him a look. “Look, Rich. Someone has to take care of you and I don’t think you want it to be me at--”

Richie gives him a shove to the chest, his face red. “I fucking dont!” 

Eddie clenches his jaw. He doesn’t look at Richie when he says, “Please just get in the car. Don’t make me beg you.” Richie wouldn’t make him beg, couldn’t bring himself to do it if he tried. He’s angry, sure, fucking _livid_ even, but he only has himself to blame. He knows that. He gets in the car. 

The ride back to Haddonfield is understandably worse than the one to Queens. They don’t laugh. They don’t speak. It feels like Richie’s back in Derry, a heartbroken kid and scared out of his fucking mind. 

His head starts to feel a lot less slippery, and he starts replaying events in his head. His heart hurts. Richie feels sick. Eddie’s fucking engaged? He knew he shouldn’t have come here expecting some kind of a happy ending and he feels like he’s going to throw up and— _oh shit_.

He grabs a plastic bag that he finds in the floor. It’s filled with Eddie’s gym shoes and a t-shirt and he rips them all out and throws them into the backseat. 

“I’m gonna be sick,” he warns. “Don’t take your eyes off the road, Eddie.” 

“W-wait are you—“

“Do not take your fucking eyes off this road for one second, so help me God.”

“Richie please just--” 

Before Eddie can even finish his sentence, Richie wretches into the bag. If Eddie can do anything, it’s do what he’s told. Richie looks up momentarily, looks over at Eddie whose eyes are focused on the road stretched in front of him. He looks worried, big eyes wide and scared and it makes Richie’s stomach churn.

“Fucking pull over,” he mumbles, his voice groggy and thick.

“Pull over?” Eddie looks at him. Jesus.

“Pull over.”

“But you said—“

“Eddie, fucking pull the car over!”

Eddie jerks the wheel while fumbling with his hazard lights. Richie flings open the car door before it even has a chance to stop, dry heaving and spitting onto the road. When Eddie reaches over and pats his back lightly, all the fight flows out of him immediately. 

Richie starts crying. His shoulders shake with it and his eyes burn and he’s never felt like this in his life. He cries and he sits there with Eddie’s hand on his shoulder. He thinks Eddie is crying, too. 

Eddie drops him off at Bill’s house. Neither of them say goodbye. 

Bill’s turned his pull-out couch into a makeshift bed, and Richie’s head throbs when he lays down. On the coffee table, Bill leaves him water, a bottle of Ibuprofen and a photo folded in upon itself. 

“What’s with the piece of paper,” he asks groggily. Bill just shrugs. “Eddie guh-gave it to me back when everything happened in D-Derry, said to give it to you once you’d cuh-cuh-calmed down a bit.” 

Richie laughs weakly when Bill says, “You never calmed down, Rich.” It hurts his head. 

Bill turns off the overhead light, leaves on the lamp and doesn’t explain the photo any further. He doesn’t need to. 

Richie unfolds the photo when he’s nearly asleep on Bill’s couch and he sees himself, nearly fifteen years younger, almost handsome but not quite. He’s got his arms wrapped around the shoulders of Eddie Kaspbrak in the prime of their lives, cotton stuffed snuggly up his nose with his lip split open. 

He keeps the photo. He doesn’t say thank you, but he knows that Bill’s okay with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i was going to try to keep this chapter shorter than the others just because i didnt want to overwhelm it with too much plot but i honestly couldn't stop myself and now it's the longest chapter lmao
> 
> don't even worry about it i know how this shit wraps up.
> 
> also i need to stop posting late at night because i always forget to proofread until the morning after sorry girlies.
> 
> oh also that eight minutes of chapter 2 footage had me fucking rolling bro!!!!

**Author's Note:**

> i didn’t think that there was enough love to hate to love fics out there so uhh i wrote this. there rlly isn’t enough fics portraying sad and vulnerable richie as well so uh ouchie!! that ones on me!


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